What's the new .com? and little information about Domains
A domain is a website address that has to be purchased. If you have not yet decided on a business name make sure you include domain options as part of your decision making process. If the domain for your business name is not available, pick another name. This is extremely crucial in creating your business identity and separating yourself from your competition, but more then anything its how your customers find you. If they google your company name online and find another business, it will be extremely difficult to pull your customers directly to you.
Additionally if you have not yet decided on a name and have a few options, purchase all the domains now to reserve them as they are often quite cheap.
If you have already decided on a company name you should immediately purchase your matching domain. You can search available domains on sites like godaddy. It will tell you if the domain is available and how much it costs. It will also show you similar domains to give you more options.
.com, .ca, .net, .org, what should we choose?
There are many options for your .com. .ca .net .org or any word really. For example if your business name was Fred's Painting, you could create a website address that was freds.painting. The painting becomes the .com. This is a very creative way to have a simple website name and a backup if your domain is already taken.
You can also make your websites .com whatever industry you are in. fredspainting.paint, or a construction company would be freds.build. Both these options are the new trend however, the general public is still getting used to this new structure and sometimes people can get confused.
When it comes to .com, .ca and all the other generic options the answer isn't a resounding yes to this and no to that. .com will always be the leading choice and .ca Canadians love for obvious reasons.
What you should do is purchase as many domains as you can that all link to your site. Even if you are not sure or they slightly vary, purchase them for good planning. You can link them all to your site as well so its easy for people to get there no matter what they type in.
Domains can vary in price from $5 - $1,000,000. When you search the name you will find the price. If the business name is not currently being used it will be cheap and closer to the $5 end. If you do search your domain and it is currently owned by someone, often it is just owned and not being used. You can bid on the domain and try to purchase it from that owner through sites like godaddy!
So long story short, when it comes to .com or .net or .paint the best answer is, there is no real answer. It's really just your preference. What you like the best and then for back up buy more then one!!
And if you ever need help with it all, Technology Solve can help with everything form domain purchase and set up to website builds.